Tag Archives: the face in the mirror

The other day, I posted about “An old friend” – today it’s about NEW FRIENDS.

I posted on Facebook last night that I participated in my first book club – that’s not true, but I want to explain. In the past, a group of my local girl friends did an “Evening with the Author” but I don’t think I really thought of it as a book club. I thought of it as time with people I loved.

My brother, Charlie introduced my books to someone he worked with and she, Cindy contacted me to talk about The Face in the Mirror with a group of her friends. I didn’t even know Cindy, but I left our Facetime encounter with NEW FRIENDS. I enjoyed talking to these ladies who knew nothing about me about a piece of my heart – and then I let them in on some of the things I’m working on. I LOVED IT! We talked and laughed and talked some more.

I spent the day with an old friend today. Several actually – Mitchell, Renie and the characters that became The Face in the Mirror. It was a nice visit. I started reading around 10:30 and finished at 7:40 (with a break here and there to run a sweeper, laundry, etc). I’m doing my first book club on Tuesday and I needed a refresher on this story.

It’s funny… When I finished writing the story of these old friends I moved on to new friends. I didn’t forget about Renie and Mitchell, I just made new friends that took my time and space in my head. I realized as I read this story again that I’d missed them. I’d read something and think – I WROTE THAT! One of my favorites was a line about an unlikable character who I described as a “debutante wanna be with a redneck pedigree.” I laughed out loud! I felt proud of Renie and Mitchell’s story.

Like this:

Greetings friends, (I’m pretty sure that if you stop by to read my thoughts you have to be my friend!)

Today is a bittersweet celebration day.

Celebrating that Timeless is live – Andy’s story is finally available for you to catch up on what he’s been thinking all this time. The Rock and Roll Series spans over about forty years and Andy’s kept a lot of things bottled up. Letting go is freeing. I hope you’ll check out the ENCORE (I love that my friend Francine called it that.)

Also – Amazon bundled them, so if you haven’t read the first three – you can purchase them all:
or maybe you loved the 1st three so much and are excited about the ENCORE that you want to gift them all.https://tinyurl.com/yc9vcetk

If you have read the first books, I hope you fall in love with Andy all over again.

I love and appreciate all of you who have followed OUR journey.

Release day always makes me think of my mom. Alis would already be done reading this book that just released today – she DEVOURED words. I think she is part of each story in some way. I always slip “something Alis” in. This time, she’s a special part of the end of the book, in my “After Thoughts” and I have to thank my friend Judy for the idea of adding what you will find there.

But today I’m thinking of Alis even more. Today is not only release day – it’s my birthday and I miss her most on holidays – and YES! MY BIRTHDAY IS A HOLIDAY! 🙂

My earliest memories of birthdays included “MY SPECIAL CELEBRATION” which, until I turned 16 or so was always what she thought was my favorite – because I was a girl – and girls liked pink… so my cake was ALWAYS cherry chip, with pink frosting and cherry vanilla ice cream. As I got older I told her that it really wasn’t my favorite – she acted shocked! I told her that I loved her carrot cake and that I was a plain ol’vanilla ice cream girl. After that she baked her recipe – 14 Carat Cake – I have it and one day I will tackle the work involved. She made it for Gene and my wedding cake and each time I look at the recipe I think of all the love it took for her to bake that cake for me each time she did. I settle for Publix’s carrot cake (almost as good, but missing the love) now.

One of my other birthday memories was her telling me, or calling me later in my life to tell me (and I can almost relay it word-for-word):

“Do you know what I was doing (however many) years ago today at 3:42 in the morning? I was crying, because you were a girl and I knew your dad wanted a boy.”

And then she would tell me how wrong she was, that my dad loved me and bragged on me being the most beautiful baby in the nursery…

As you get older – this is my 58th celebration of life – you remember things more fondly. They become TIMELESS.

This thought kept me awake last night and finally, I had to get up and try to clear my head.

The news last night was so unsettling. I’m not shy to say that Mr. Trump was not the person I saw leading our country, but I don’t see the senselessness of the destruction that took place (and I’m afraid to look at what has happened overnight). This man is who was elected and I PRAY for him to be MORE than I expect from him. I PRAY for him to turn my thoughts around and be MORE kind than some of the things I’ve seen and heard. PLEASE let him be MORE, because for him to fail… well, the only way I can even think to say it is this…

IF HE FAILS WE ARE SCREWED.

Let this new day be one of the HOPE Mr. Trump’s successor had us think about for our future. I, for one, don’t want to see a world without HOPE.

And so…

On that note… Going through chaos to bring change is what I am praying for. I have some changes ahead that I HOPE AND PRAY will bring some peace of mind back to Gene and I. I’m making a work change that will bring me closer to home, but more importantly, closer to Gene. I’m currently spending about three hours in the car round trip each day. Soon it will be less than an hour. I never thought about the commute time as a WHOLE when I took my current job. I will say – because I try to find a POSITIVE in everything – I’ve learned a lot in those hours each work day for the past five months – a lot about me… You can’t spend that much time stuck in traffic and NOT have time to think. 🙂 Some days its been prayerful thoughts – no one can make that commute without praying! Some of my thoughts have been about the future, and some have been hopeful thoughts that “ALL GREAT CHANGES ARE PRECEDED BY CHAOS,” and that something better is coming.

I am ready.

I’ve learned a lot about people in these past months – first of all: LEAVE FOR WORK FIVE MINUTES EARLIER PEOPLE! But really… I’ve learned that people can become family and I will miss the family I’ve made at this job. Five months isn’t really a long time – like a 1/3 of a year – but it’s long enough to learn who is good – and I like to surround myself with GOOD people – life would suck if there were only assholes. Write that down – it’s profound! Ha ha ha! I pray that these people – this family – stay in my friend bucket.

As the chaos passes, I pray that I can get back to Andy first, and then to Josh and Chellie, and whoever else pops in my head. Thank you for waiting for me.

I think I shall quote Matthew McConaughey from his 2014 Oscar acceptance speech and THANK my friend Judy Gasperini for sharing it with me…

“There’s a few things — about three things, to my count, that I need each day. One of them is something to look up to; another is something to look forward to; and another is someone to chase.

Now, first off I want to thank God because that’s who I look up. He’s graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand. He has shown me that it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates. In the words of the late Charlie Laughton who said, “When you got God, you got a friend, and that friend is you.”

To my family — that’s who and what I look forward to:

To my father, who I know he’s up there right now with a big pot of gumbo; he’s got a lemon meringue pie over there; he’s probably in his underwear, and he’s got a cold can of Miller Lite and he’s dancing right now. To you dad — you taught what it means to be a man.

To my mother, who’s here tonight, who taught me and my two older brothers — demanded — that we respect ourselves. And what we in turn learned was then we were better able to respect others. Thank you for that, Mama.”

To my wife, Camila, and my kids, Levi, Vida, and Mr. Stone, the courage and significance you give me every day I go out the door is unparalleled. You are the four people in my life that I want to make the most proud of me. Thank you.

And to my hero, that’s who I chase. Now when I was 15 years old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and say “Who’s your hero?” And I said, “I don’t know. I gotta think about that. Give me a couple of weeks.” I come back two weeks later — this person comes up and says “Who’s your hero?” I said, “I thought about it. You know who it is?” I said, “It’s me in 10 years.”

So I turned 25. Ten years later, that same person comes to me and goes, “So are you a hero?” And I was like, “Not even close. No, no, no.” She said, “Why?” I said, “Because my hero’s me at 35.” So you see every day, every week, every month, and every year of my life, my hero’s always 10 years away. I’m never gonna be my hero. I’m not gonna attain that. I know I’m not, and that’s just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.

So, to any of us, whatever those things are, whatever it is we look up to, whatever it is we look forward to, and whoever it is we’re chasing — to that I say, “Amen.” To that I say, “Alright, alright, alright.” To that I say “Just keep living.”

I know it has been a long time since I’ve added any thoughts here – my head was full of too many other things that I couldn’t think about what to share with you. Lots of changes in my work life in the past few months and I am prayerful about more to come. If you follow along on Facebook, you know that we have had some (too many) trials with Gene’s health lately as well.

I’m hoping that with a new year the opportunities for me to have ME TIME will be greater. I am ready for some peace and calm.

I can tell you that I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like, but…

I have a final story from Andy that I am working on. He came to me and said “this isn’t finished,” and shared some thoughts with me 🙂 I love when he does that! We are a ways off, but TIMELESS is coming.

And… There is another story that needs some major tweaks and love that I hope to get out this year – the title is AFTER THE FALL, and I hope that you will fall in love with Josh and Chellie’s story.

I will be better about stopping in and sharing updates and maybe teases with you.

I hope 2017 is filled with love and good things, and that the challenges you face are manageable – that’s what I’m shooting for… managing my challenges.

I have a working title for my next book – After the Fall. I love this story (I LOVE THEM ALL!) but this one has a personal story attached. It’s out of my hands for now. I’ve sent it to the next two sets of eyes – one a reader who has lived with me through each story and one is the first CRITICAL SET OF EYES… so it’s all I can do for now.

For those of you who didn’t like that I went a “little further” in the last book – for those who wanted more than I gave – these are my stories. I’ve reigned it back in JUST A TAD. Going further didn’t do anything for me – personally – and it didn’t get me anywhere outside my comfort zone… STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW… I know milder love stories and if that keeps my circle smaller, than that’s where I’m supposed to be.

I answered a post that someone else posted the other day about too much or too little and the bottom line is that we’re never going to please everyone – find your niche and stick to it. WRITE WHAT YOU LOVE, not what you hope someone else will.

I’ll be an anxious mess for the next few days – while the first eyes do their thing…

I’m going to end this with Happy Easter – He is Risen. If you don’t believe that, than happy whatever….

I haven’t posted in way too long, but I haven’t had anything profound to say 🙂

Today, I do… well, I don’t know about the profundity, but I have something to write about.

I’ve been working on my next project for a while. It’s getting close to being able to hand it off to let someone else read it. I’m thinking about that a lot. I’m thinking that I need to spread my wings a little wider… I don’t know, and that’s not what this post is about – just some babblings from Babs <3

The thing is about this story. I won’t call out names, but someone else’s experience and her openness to share insight in her posts on occasion made me think… if she experienced this in her life – WHO ELSE HAS?

After I asked myself that question, the story started flowing like water – sometimes water leaks from my eyes… This story is emotional for me. I’m working hard to make this good – I’m going back right now and asking myself is it good enough, because it might make you think about someone who is or has gone through the same experience – I don’t want to give too much away…

I don’t have a title yet, I’ll come back when I do.

Just wanted to let you know I’m writing.

I’m also exploring other avenues to make my books available. Amazon keeps making it harder…